Nutrition from the inside and out: as told by a future Registered Dietitian

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I don’t think I could even try to tell you how excited I was to see this box waiting for me when I arrived home the other day week (sorry, this post has been sitting in my drafts bin for a while)….

I love getting mail. LOVE it. And even when it’s junk mail… if it’s addressed to me, I’m stoked. (Although to my electric, gas, and cable providers, if you’d like to refrain from sending me bills, I’d be even happier 😉 )

When I saw it was from Coach’s Oats, I was even more excited to open it up.

This sweet potato had been sitting in the back of my refrigerator for a while. I was getting tired of it sitting there, but I had no idea what to do with it. I looked around the internet searching “sweet potato recipes,” but after several lists with ingredients I didn’t have, paired with the success of my Scrambed concoction, I soon became confident that I could make my own recipe.

Sweet potato, you’re going down. 😉

First I peeled and sliced the sweet potatoes into bite size “fries”

Sweet potatoes are an excellent source of Vitamin A. Self.com writes that the “crayola-colored orange in sweet potatoes comes from beta-carotene, an antioxidant that converts to vitamin A in your body and switches on DNA that’s in charge of producing new skin cells and shedding old ones.”

How’s that for a healthy glow?! 😉

I placed the sweet potatoes in a dish, drizzled a little bit of olive oil over top, and added a dash of salt and a few heavy shakes of cinnamon.

Calorie saving tip!: It was smart to put the mixture in a dish because doing so allowed me to evenly coat the fries with only a teaspoon or two of the oil.

I then set them on a pan, placed inside a preheated oven at 400 degrees, and baked for 20 minutes.

I was getting impatient (and hungry) so I had a dish of blackberries to calm my raging stomach.

I found these blackberries at Kroger the other day. 2 packs for $4= a good deal for Ohio in the winter.

MMM tasty. (Sidenote: I can’t wait for this summer and the blackberries in my parent’s garden…so fresh, so good.)

Finally the timer went off and it was time to see if my Cinnamon Sweet Potato Fries had finished cooking! The smell from the cinnamon was incredible. I took them out of the oven and set them on my plate– very ready to dig in.

Blech! They were terrible! What was I thinking??? The sweet potatoes were mushy and the flavor was way too strong. Without anything to mask its power, I knew I had to do something… that little bit of blackberries could not suffice for a meal!

So I went against all my nutrition knowledge and melted some marshmallows on top, thinking maybe sugar is what it needed. Dessert for dinner. Why did I think this was ok?

The marshmallows did help a tad…but not enough. The sweet potato taste was just too much for me.

Sweet potato fries = fail.

Frustrated, I settled for a PB sandwich instead.

My new twitter friend Janet was there to help me make sure I didn’t give up on sweet potatoes just yet. She linked me to Inspired RD’s site for a new recipe for the fries. It looks like next time I need to cook them at a higher temperature, flip them halfway through, and above all, make sure they are cut into thinner slices.

This recipe was a dinner nightmare, but you learn from your mistakes, right?

And hey, at least the sweet potato isn’t taking up space in the fridge anymore. That leaves more space for more berries. 🙂